Can Web 2.0 Save Teacher Professional Development?

In November, Education Week sponsored a webinar entitled Can Web 2.0 Save Teacher Professional Development? This webinar featured two guest speakers -- Barbara Treacy, Director of EdTech Leaders Online, Education Development Center and Christopher Sessums, Assistant Professor in the College of Education at the University of Florida.

Barbara Treacy maintained that Web 2.0 technology could not "save" professional development but, instead, could help support "effective" professional development.  Her presentation featured elements of effective professional development and examples of how Web 2.0 and other online tools can help educators implement professional development more effectively.

Ms. Treacy used the following description of Web 2.0 online applications in her presentation:


"Web 2.0 online applications use the World Wide Web as a platform and allows for participatory involvement, collaboration, and interactions among users. Web 2.0 is also characterized by the creation and sharing of intellectual and social resources by end users."

Leadership for Web 2.0 in Education: Promise and Reality by Cheryl Lemke & Ed Coughlin, CoSN (2009)

Barbara Treacy asserted that, to be effective, professional development should:

• Be intensive, ongoing, and connected to practice.
• Focus on student learning.
• Address teaching of specific curriculum content.
• Align with school improvement priorities and goals.
• Build strong working relationships among teachers.
  

How do these technologies support the elements of effective professional development?

Be intensive, ongoing, and connected to practice.
Web 2.0 technologies allow professional development to be extended over time and let teachers implement what they are learning in the classroom.

Focus on student learning.
When teachers can implement what they are learning in their own classrooms, they can focus on their own students' learning.

Address teaching of specific curriculum content.
Through rich reading opportunities, multimedia activities, and online explorations, teachers can address specific content in-depth.

Align with school improvement priorities and goals.
Web 2.0 and other online technology tools allow local educators to actively develop, implement, and lead professional development activities, building local capacity and expertise and allowing for professional development customized to fit particular educational needs.

Build strong working relationships among teachers.
These technologies allow all teachers to participate in professional development over time, building learning communities within the organization. Ongoing discussion between facilitators and participants build strong working relationships.

Categories of Web 2.0 and Other Online Tools defined by Ms. Treacy included Course Management Tools, Voice and Content Tools, Collaboration Tools, Communication Tools, and Other Tools.

Course Management Tools such as Moodle, Blackboard, Angel, Desire2Learn, and Sakai allow educators to:

• Organize and share content, research, multimedia.
• Engage in ongoing discussions.
• Assess and document learning.
• Build formal and informal communities of practice.
• Share and analyze student work.

Voice and Content Tools such as Voki, Jing, Gcast, and VoiceThread enable educators to:

• Personalize introductions and discussions.
• Provide learning or project summaries.
• Explain a technical piece.
• Create online discussions.
• Address the needs of auditory learners and accessibility issues.

Collaboration Tools like Wikispaces, Google Sites, Docs, and Groups, ZohoWriter, Facebook, Flickr, and Ning enable educators to:

• Collaborate and co-create documents, plans, materials, media.
• Brainstorm and share ideas, resources, data, etc.
• Discuss and communicate with team members.

Communication Tools such as Skype, Elluminate, and FreeConference allow educators to:

• Conduct "live" discussions and meetings.
• Blend synchronous and asynchronous learning.
• Address varying learning styles.
• Collaborate and share documents and resources.

Finally, Ms. Treacy asserts that Blogging and Micro-blogging tools such as Blogger, Twitter, and WordPress allow educators to share ideas or focus on a specific topic or project while Social Bookmarking Tools like Delicious and Diigo allow them to save and share resources.

The recorded presentation is available on the EdWeek Web site. Click here.